


Blooming, Snow White

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: Extra Scenario, F/F, Negative Self-Perception (?), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 04:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14012313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: She wondered if the warmth that spread in her chest when Maya was near was something she deserved to feel at all.





	Blooming, Snow White

**Author's Note:**

> for the 5.5 shiori miyashiro fans out there
> 
> thanks n-buna 4 my life

Maya apologized when she approached their table at the corner of the restaurant – she had work and the traffic was crazy today; you know how it is! – but Shiori shrugged her off, saying she didn’t mind waiting, and Maya reached to pick up the menu handed by the waiter, her guilty smile still in place. Shiori did the same, her own face impassive. There was no need to apologize for something that couldn’t be helped.

“Oh?” Maya tilted her head, “You haven’t ordered yet?”

When she briefly met Maya’s gaze behind the menu Shiori flushed a faint shade of embarrassment, and turned hastily to the tall, high windows overlooking the city, searching the lights blinking languidly back at her for some consolation and finding none.

“I… don’t usually eat out,” Shiori admitted, her face pink. She dragged an absent line across the table with her thumb, and didn’t think of the long hours she kept at work, the empty apartment she came back to after midnight, or the paltry kitchen where she heated up cup noodles and half-eaten leftovers. For a while she’d relied on Tatsuya’s presence and her being older to shame her into living decently, but then he’d left, and although Sudou was dead now and she was supposed to feel _happier_ , she’d fallen back into her old negligent routine with disappointing ease.

She didn’t think of any of that, or what it implied about her, either.

Instead she lifted her chin, trying to sound cheerful, “I could never squeeze in the time. I was hoping to ask for recommendations from you, actually… I’m not familiar with any of these names.”

“Being a cop sounds like hard work!” Maya laughed in that airy way of hers that, Shiori suspected, would have made a less prepared person drop their guard if they hadn't already. “Oh, but if it’s recommendations you want, then I’m happy to help… Say, Shiori, you’re not picky, are you?”

It took effort to meet Maya’s eyes and shake her head to say, no, she wasn’t. If the other woman noticed her hesitation, or sloppy attempts at maintaining composure, then she didn’t let it show. Shiori’s cheeks still felt warm, and to save herself further embarrassment, she tucked her face in behind the menu and rang the staff to pick up their orders.  

The food was good. They ate in relative silence broken by the occasional exchange of small talk, and it felt pleasant, almost, until she started paying attention to the way the light caught onto the color of Maya’s eyes, her face, making her soft around the edges – and suddenly she remembered staring was rude, and forced her gaze away, chewing thoughtfully as Maya went on about something or another.

“Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Shiori said, shaking her head. “Sorry, I’ve been distracted lately. I must be tired.”

“Don’t push yourself so hard!” she laughed.

Maya’s eyes had looked so open, so kind, and some part of her wondered if she’d been shown something she wasn’t supposed to: something private and fleeting that would be better off locked away than for Shiori to see. Looking at her fed the embers of infatuation smoldering in her heart, and if Maya kept allowing her such a concession – kept allowing Shiori to fall a little more in love with her – what would she do then? Would she have wanted to keep her? The same selfish way she’d kept in her heart the memory of Takuya’s smile and the same way she’d tried to keep Tatsuya for herself, even though she knew he wasn’t her brother and that it was cruel to them both to pretend he could be.

Keeping was the only thing she knew how to do, and though it was a compulsion brought on by the loss she’d suffered, that didn’t make it right. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone to continue justifying it like that. Shiori knew that now because Maya had been through the same – had been through worse – and yet the cheer in her voice never faded and the determination in her eyes never waned. She couldn’t comprehend how it was possible for someone to be so strong.

It wasn’t fair, Shiori had thought, that she couldn’t have gone through losing her brother without trading away that pure, earnest part of herself for the disingenuousness wrapped like brittle armor around her grieving heart – and here Maya was, having lost and died to save the world, and no less bright or _whole_ a person for it. It wasn’t fair at all. It made her feel weak and pitiful and inadequate and – and Maya had seen that part of her, hadn’t she? Had seen her Shadow in all her spite and bitterness and hateful desperation, and yet, when Shiori reached out to her, Maya hadn’t so much as flinched away, even though she had every reason to.

Why was that? Had Maya looked at her flaws given form and recognized that weakness in her, too? There was no way to tell. That smile of hers was impenetrable. Shiori wasn’t sure if she could be the one to see through it.

Shiori had wondered if maybe she was too pitiful a person to be hated, but now, she wondered if it would be better if she had been. If the warmth that spread in her chest when Maya was near was something she deserved to feel at all.

She didn’t say any of this as their meal ended and she politely declined Maya’s offer to drive them home. “I had a good time,” she told her. “If only we weren’t so busy! We should do this again.”

“Anytime,” Maya said brightly, and as Shiori watched her get up to leave she thought that maybe, even if only for a little while, all the questions and uncertainties could wait in favor of remembering the forgotten joy of someone else’s company.


End file.
